Posted: Dec 10, 2013 8:09 pm
Tonight is an uncommonly clear night here in Belgium. About 2 degrees C, with a very slight wind to keep the dew down. After supper, I dug out my boots, extreme cold weather, N-1B, set a lawn chair out on my terrace, and got under a fleece blanket to do some observations of the southern sky with my Bushnell Custom Elite 7x26 binoculars.
It's about a half-moon tonight, which dominates the sky, of course. And, the terminator across the moon's face was spectacular.
In less than ten minutes, I got four more nice views. The pleiades were easily visible, and high in the sky. As I was scanning around, the ISS came towards me from the west. It was very bright until it moved into shade. I always enjoy spotting that station. Just to see what I'd find there, I reclined the lawn chair and looked pretty much straight up. Did that, and a meteorite streaked through my field of view. After a moment, I picked up the Andromeda galaxy.
Curious how that would look with a little more magnification, I tried M31 with my 10x50 Minolta Classic II binocs. A little bigger, but not a better view. The trade-off for higher magnification was offset by the amplification of the normal jitter of holding binoculars by hand, even with four times the light gathering than the little 26mm objectives of the Bushnells.
In a couple hours, Jupiter should be well up, and I'll go have a look before bed time.
Luna, M45, M31, and the ISS. Not a bad evening.
It's about a half-moon tonight, which dominates the sky, of course. And, the terminator across the moon's face was spectacular.
In less than ten minutes, I got four more nice views. The pleiades were easily visible, and high in the sky. As I was scanning around, the ISS came towards me from the west. It was very bright until it moved into shade. I always enjoy spotting that station. Just to see what I'd find there, I reclined the lawn chair and looked pretty much straight up. Did that, and a meteorite streaked through my field of view. After a moment, I picked up the Andromeda galaxy.
Curious how that would look with a little more magnification, I tried M31 with my 10x50 Minolta Classic II binocs. A little bigger, but not a better view. The trade-off for higher magnification was offset by the amplification of the normal jitter of holding binoculars by hand, even with four times the light gathering than the little 26mm objectives of the Bushnells.
In a couple hours, Jupiter should be well up, and I'll go have a look before bed time.
Luna, M45, M31, and the ISS. Not a bad evening.